In recent years, cells having pluripotency, such as embryonic stem cells (ES cells) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) obtained by introducing undifferentiated-cell-specific genes into somatic cells, have been reported, methods for inducing cells in the respiratory system, such as alveolar epithelial cells, from such cells have been reported (WO 2014/168264; Rippon, H. J. et al, Cloning Stem Cells 6: 49-56, 2004; Coraux, C. et al, Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol., 32: 87-92, 2005; Morrisey, E. E. and Hogan, B. L. M., Dev. Cell., 18: 8-23, 2010; Ghaedi, M. et al., J. Clin. Invest., Vol. 123, pp. 4950-62, 2013; Huang, S. X. et al., Nat. Biotechnol., Vol. 32, pp. 84-91, 2014; and Gotoh, S. et al., Stem Cell Reports, Vol. 3, pp. 394-403, 2014), and growth factors and the like that are necessary for the induction of such cells have also been reported. The present inventors discloses that three-dimensional coculture of human pluripotent stem cells is useful for induction of differentiation into type II alveolar epithelial cells and a reporter enables isolation of type II alveolar epithelial cells (Gotoh, S. et al., Stem Cell Reports, Vol. 3, pp. 394-403, 2014). The present inventors also disclose a method for producing alveolar epithelial progenitor cells from pluripotent stem cells (WO 2014/168264).
To date, elucidation of pathological conditions of airway diseases causing ciliary motility disorders or mucociliary clearance abnormalities and development of therapeutic agents for the airway diseases have been desired. Elucidation of pathological conditions and development of therapeutic agents as described above involve the use of airway epithelial cells, such as ciliated airway epithelial cells, as target cells. As with the case of the alveolar epithelial cells described above, however, there have been no reports concerning induction of airway epithelial cells from human pluripotent stem cells in the past.